Infineon began the dispute in April 2011 when it sued Atmel in the U.S. alleging that the AVR, Xmega and MaxTouch families of microcontrollers and related products used in automotive, industrial, and touch screen applications infringed on 11 patents held by Infineon.

In July 2011 Atmel countersued asserting against Infineon, alleging Infineon's 8-, 16- and 32-bit microcontrollers infringe six patents while denying any infringement on its part and denying the validity of Infineon's previously asserted patents.

Both companies have now agreed to seek to get the patent infringement lawsuits between them dismissed.

A friend that has been through a patent dispute tell me filing for a patent is just an invitation to spend a half-million in Federal court. He just keeps trade secrets now and moves faster than his competition.

Here's the pseudo-code for patent
infringement transactions for semi industry.
If(Somebody sue you)
publicly deny infringement;
If (you have similar patents)
Counter sue the guy;
else
Buy similar patents from Trolls
And counter sue the guy;
end
Wait (until the guy turn up for negotiations)
Settle out of court. & kickout the lawyers.
Hug each other & do cross licensing deal
END
Exception
---------
If(person suing=(university+ a crazy jury ard)
suckup immediately
throw and few $$ for univ research grant
run for life;
Else
get ready with 1.2B$ for 2 silly patents.
END